Hip-hop station KDAY-FM reportedly will be sold, switch formats

This post has been updated. See below for details.

KDAY-FM (93.5), the Redondo Beach-based radio station that has been a bastion of R&B;, hip-hop and urban contemporary music, is reportedly being sold and likely will flip to a Chinese on-air format in coming months.

According to a website that covers the radio industry, Magic Broadcasting has agreed to sell KDAY and KDEY-FM (Ontario/Riverside) to RBC Communications in a deal worth nearly $20 million. If the sale goes through, the website radioinsight.com reported, it’s likely that the station would switch to a Mandarin-language format in coming months.

Pop & Hiss was not able to reach station officials this morning for comment.

In its heyday on the AM dial, KDAY played a major role in promoting the blossoming West Coast rap scene, boosting the profile of L.A. groups such as N.W.A. After that station was sold, the call letters returned on 93.5 in 2004, which found the station switching formats from hip-hop to urban contemporary and even talk radio before coming back to hip-hop again. (The local blog Franklin Avenue outlines the station’s struggle to settle upon an identity here.)

In the most recent Arbitron ratings, covering Jan. 31 to Feb. 27, KDAY tied for 29^th place in the L.A.-Orange County market, with about 958,000 people tuning in for at least five minutes per week.

Update, 12:41 p.m. April 10, 2013: An earlier version of this post mistakenly indicated that KDAY-FM was the same station that began playing hip-hop in the ‘80s. That station, at 1580 AM, was in fact sold, and the call letters later popped up on an FM station years later in a nod to the earlier AM station.

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